The Great Exodus of 2009

Take the tube to the Victoria Station. Take the train to Mitcham. Take the tram and get off at the first stop. Walk up the hill. The chapel is in the basement of an old building. - Those were the directions to our ward building. I've decided that British people aren't the best when it comes to giving directions.

First of all, we left for church 2 hours before our scheduled meeting time so that we could meet with our bishop to get our callings. Once at the train station it took awhile to get our tickets sorted out so we missed our first train. The next train came thirty minutes later - the train we'll be taking from now on to get to church on time. Once on the train we thought our troubles were over. HA! If only! We were standing at the door at our stop and hit the "open" button on the door. The door didn't open! The train started moving again. Without letting us off! We had to get off at the next stop (we pushed the "stop" button like 8 times before the train even got to the station) run across a bridge and hop on the train going back to our original stop. We barely made that train, and finally made it to our original stop.

We then had to get passes to get on the tram. We took the tram one stop and got off- just like the directions said. The next part of the directions said to "walk up the hill". One problem - there weren't any hills in sight! We wandered around and decided that we had gone the wrong way on the tram. We got back on the tram and went two stops to the stop we should've gotten off at in the first place. Thankfully this time there was a hill to walk up. AND the best part of all was that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was listed on the map! We energetically walked up the hill and started walking a few blocks down the street. After walking for awhile we finally asked someone and we found out we had walked WAY past it! We made it to church thirty minutes late! It had taken us 2 and a half hours to get to church!

Church was amazing though. The people are so welcoming and so nice! I really hope I get put in the Young Women Program. The young women are so fun. They're just the like YW in the states. There were the girls who were goofing off and the girls who had their phones out the whole time. Then there was this one who was so dedicated to the gospel and said the most inspirational things. I am so grateful that I was able to attend church today. It was just what I needed. We also had a fireside tonight where a member of the stake presidency and his wife spoke. When his wife spoke to us she said exactly what I needed to hear. I am so grateful for the Lord's tender mercies in my life. I have truly been spiritually uplifted and rejuvenated.

In other news, today I found out there is someone in the world who stresses and worries more than me. (*gasp!*) Tricia has got to be the most easily stressed out person in the world. (Love her!) Anyway, today she was stressing about not being able to go sightseeing because she needs to completely focus on schoolwork. Schoolwork is really important to me, but most of our learning experiences are going to come from EXPERIENCING London. So I told her something that a very dear friend told me CONSTANTLY this past semester at school. I said, "Tricia, don't let school get in the way of your education." (I KNOW you read this and you'll be smiling right now Hutchings) PARENTS - I'm getting all my work done. No worries about that. But I'm NOT going to let it hinder my great London adventure.

That's all for today. Tomorrow after dinner we're all going to The Globe Theatre to see "As You Like It". I'm really excited! I'll definitely post more pictures tomorrow as well! Oh, and if this post is a little spazzy or doesn't make sense, I blame it on the fact that I'm exhausted and just woke up from a two hour nap and am having trouble putting a complete sentence together.

Funny Moments of the day:
Tricia: If you don't MIND the gap, you'll fall IN the gap.

Rebecca: Wait, did someone say something about hickeys? (No one was talking about hickeys, or anything close to that...)

(Oh and I should mention that on our way back to the London Centre from church a very intoxicated lady at the train station asked us if we thought that God killed Michael Jackson. She also went on to say that "we" - the Americans - killed Michael... haha)